Superior, Wis., draws sizable crowd to protests over George Floyd's death

SUPERIOR, Wis. – Two of Kim Young's grandchildren sat at her feet as she made an impassioned plea for justice from the middle of a sunlit crowd.

"I refuse to fail them," said the community activist. "I refuse to let them grow up and become objects of scorn and fear."

In a now-familiar scene playing out around the country for more than a week in the wake of George Floyd's death, some 200 peaceful protesters gathered at the Douglas County Courthouse in Superior on Thursday afternoon to demand police accountability and an end to racial violence.

"No more," Stephan Witherspoon, president of the Duluth chapter of the NAACP, said as the crowd repeated.

Superior, a city of 26,000 that, like Duluth, is 90% white, has a Commission on Communities of Color that is drafting the city's official response to Floyd's death on May 25 while being restrained by police in Minneapolis. That board will meet next week.

"No violence, no tearing down our community — we are going to help build them up," Young said.

Mayor Jim Paine, who led off his remarks with an unequivocal "Black lives matter," said the city's police force is "one of the most progressive in Wisconsin" and urged protesters to continue putting pressure on the government by writing to representatives, showing up at meetings and voting.

Energized by calls to challenge white supremacy activities, the crowd later spread out around the courthouse and commanded a chorus of supportive honks at the corner of Belknap and Hammond, one of the city's busiest intersections.

Before the crowd thinned out, Young told those gathered to continue the work that the protests represent.

"We are no longer asking you to dismantle racism," she told the crowd. "You're going to do it."